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Violin Purse - a Special Momento for Community Leader

This entry was posted on September 8, 2015 by Becky.

Cool Music ( Violin ) Purse - un No. 3

If there ever was ever a stylish upstanding member of the community - it's Ms. Bee DeSelm.

Bee in a hurry to route for her football team! Violin Purse and all.

Bee cherishes her violin purse as a symphony player momento. She began her career as a nurse thinking she needed to give up her music. But the head nurse was generous to schedule her shifts around the Columbus, Ohio Symphony calendar. So there she began her dual career in both nursing and as a violin player in the symphony in 1942.

Years later, she moved to Tennessee. Though she joined the Knoxville Symphony, she became involved with the League of Women Voters. She rose as a community leader and became the President, and continued her work on the State Board. With this work and two children, time constraints led her to retire her symphony chair. In 1976, she became the first elected woman to be a Knoxville, Tennessee County Commissioner along with Mary Lou Horner. Bee says, "it is important to note we were not the first women commissioners. After the suffragette movement won the right for women to vote, a female County Commissioner was appointed to the post".

Amongst other things, Bee largely worked for public education causes. She worked so hard to upgrade one of the Knoxville libraries, that they named it after her!

Today at her assisted living facility, she loves tending to the roses. And like my own mother who lives with me now, she every so often falls into the rose bush. And like my own mother, says its well worth the risk of being scratched up occasionally! (The joys of aging).

I stopped by the Senior Living Facility to interview and have lunch with Ms. Bee DeSelm once again. I give her rides to our music club (when I don't forget to swing by to pick her up). When I first visited her to personally deliver her violin purse, it was during the lunch hour of the facility. She insisted that we stop at every table in the dining room and discuss the Violettes music purses. She was fierce trying to sell to everyone in the establishment, and one women actually did end up visiting Violettes to purchase some gifts! I was as embarrassed about that sales push as if she were my own mother.

Since then Bee has become a wonderful friend. She is the age of my mother, 90 years young. Bee was so excited when I brought her the violin purse the first time, as you read above, that she asked what she could do to help. I told her that she could make a video telling about the purse. She was delighted to do the task a year ago. It is presented below!